Strength & Weaknesses

Shutdown by chain CC
Can't build tanky until mid/late game
Has trouble when even slightly behind in lane
Shut down by extreme amounts of armor
Easily kited by some champions when flash is down
No early sustain

Masteries

Offense
My personal preference of masteries for Riven, she's a very powerful AD Caster with relatively short CD's, so the CDR from Sorcery is far superior to the AS you get from Fury. You should also be spacing out your auto attacks between each spell cast anyways to utilize the most of your damage, the CDR buffs your sustained damage a lot more than attack speed basically.

The rest in the offense masteries explains itself, everything else for Riven is a waste of a point, no need for crit.

Defense
The health regen is better for Riven over health since her regen nerfs have made it hard for her to sustain in lane for the first few levels, this combined with Valor makes it even that much more harder to bully her out of lane with constant harass. The points in the Armor/MR masteries are just really based on who you're facing in lane, more points in MR if vs. AP, or just more armor vs. AD. If it's a hybrid champion just put 2 points in each and grab a point in Unyielding, every little bit counts.

Wallhops

Executing Wallhops

1: Activate your first 2 casts of your 2.jpg, saving the last charge for the jump.
2: Run towards the wall
3: Use your final charge a split second before you hit the wall, otherwise Riven will stop in front of the wall, losing all her momentum and she'll just Q the wall without jumping over it.
4: If the first 3 steps were done right, you should be on the other side of the wall.
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Wallhop Locations & Difficulties
1 - Easy
Notes: Pretty straightforward, you can go both ways but it's a bit tricker jumping from inside the wolf camp, just takes a little bit of time to perfect.
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2 - Easy
Notes: Same as #1, requires some practice.
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3 - Easy
Notes: A bit weird since you don't have much room to utilize before the jump, nothing too bad though with practice.
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4 - Medium
Notes: A bit hard when the blue golem is alive at the time, but otherwise requires a significant amount of practice.
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5 - Medium
Notes: Pretty simple to jump into the river but can be pretty tricky to jump out of the river, pretty simple to learn though.
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7 - Medium
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Notes: Simple to get out of, a bit weird to jump back in, just requires a bit of practice just like #4.
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8 - Easy
Notes: Super simple to jump over, not much practice needed.
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9 - Medium
Notes: Golems can be annoying to jump over, a lot easier to jump into the camp rather than out, requires some practice.
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10 - Easy
Notes: Doesn't require that much practice, can be done quite easily once you get the angle down.
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11 - Easy
Notes: One of the 2 walls you can jump over with all 3 charges of your Q, making it quite easy to land at least 1 jump over the wall.
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12 - Medium
Notes: Angles are a bit weird on these, just need to figure them out and practice it a bit.
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13 - Medium
Notes: Angle is a bit weird on this, practice helps.
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14 - Easy
Notes: Nothing too bad even if the Blue Golem's small lizards are alive, just practice this a bit.
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15 - Easy
Notes: Same as #1.
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16 - Easy
Notes: Same as #1, angle is really easy to figure out.
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17 - Beginner
Notes: Definitely the easy wall hop out of these, I recommend starting off on this first since you can jump over it with all 3 charges of your Q.
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18 - Easy
Notes: Basic practice will make this easy to pull off.
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19 - Hard
Notes: Golems can be a pain and the angle is really weird on the jumps, requires lots of practice but can pay off sometimes.
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Extra Notes
Holding down the ` key (located above tab) will make it so your right click only attempts to attack champions rather than jungle monsters or minions, this will allow for you to walk past them just as seen in the video. (Make sure to move your cursor away from any minions/creeps before executing the jump with ` held down, your Q will still target anything your cursor is on and this will mess up your jumps)
If Riven ends up hitting the wall and bouncing back, that means you timed it too late. If she ends up just going forward but not over the wall, that means you aimed it too early.
Jump #6 is in another dimension.

Patch Changelog

Patch Changelog
Patch 3.6 Elixir of Fortitude cost increased to 350 gold from 250.
This is pretty rough, but I'll still be running Elixir of Fortitude against enemy laners that have really weak early games, however I'll probably start running Rejuvenation Bead more often with some HP pots, but I won't really talk about this all until the patch has come and I've tested a few games with these changes.

Tiamat combine cost reduced to 265 from 665 (total cost is now 1900 from 2300) and Attack damage reduced to 40 from 50.
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This is pretty nice, you'll be able to build into it faster which means you'll be able to push the lane sooner, the small things count.

Ionian Boots Of Mobility combine cost reduced to 700 from 750 (total cost is now 1000 from 1050)
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Yet another nice small buff, saves you a little bit of gold if you decide to go with these boots, nothing too major, but any minor buffs to items Riven uses is something I'll take any time of the week.
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Patch 3.8
Small camps spawn time increased to 1:55 from 1:40 and their respawn times are now 50 seconds down from 60.
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I personally like this since I never liked the idea of coming to lane with an exp advantage before the game even started, was incredibly stupid at times for the enemy laner to hit level 2 before you even got your first CS, also the reduced spawn time is pretty neat too since you can farm the jungle after you pushed your lane and it doesn't hurt your jungler as much because of it.

Abilities

Maxing Q over W and E over W.

The reason I max Q is that it provides 2.2x the amount of damage as her W if you land every hit, and it makes an excellent trade tool, Her W would be a good option but the damage will not stick to top laners as hard if they have a form of sustain. (Which most top laners have) I max E second because the shield makes trading even easier, having a shield for 260 damage (Including AD from items) at max rank every 5.16 seconds (14% CDR from Brutalizer/mastery) is a lot more powerful for trading, the fact that is has a lower cooldown than her W gives your passive more up time as well.

Tips & Tricks

Flash + Q: Just as you cast your final Q, you can flash just barely behind the opponent, flash causes the animation on it to cancel so it finishes the Q animation early and instantly does the damage and knockbock. It also registers into the game as Flash doing damage, sometimes I'd kill someone with a Flash Q and they'd say "Wtf flash did 209 Damage".
Note: You need a good memory of how far flash will take you and where to aim it properly, otherwise you'll just end up overshooting and wasting your Q knockback, or you'll undershoot it and wasting it without catching them.

Ulti+Spell Combos:

Casting your ultimate and then quickly pressing W will cancel the ultimate animation and start the W animation, this allows you to execute your combo a lot faster. You can also activate the second part of your ultimate and press E at the same time, this causes Riven to cast both spells at the same time, which extends her ultimate cast range from 900 to 1125 in theory. (The E+R combo is extremely easy to do with smart casting)

Broken Wings over bottom wall:

This requires constant practice to get it down, even I still can't get over on the first try every now and then, this opens up many options for a Riven to make plays. It can be used to dive/escape the enemy bot lane if you're on the blue side or it can be used to sliver by the dragon ward so that you're undetected for some easy ganks on the purple side.

To do this you have to be fairly close to the wall and activate your Q at the skinniest part shown on the video, you can get through the wall with all 3 Q's, don't give up if you mess up on the
first 2 dashes.

Combos

This is just a list of basic combos for Riven, you shouldn't be mashing your abilities since that kind of kills the point of her Passive.

Items

Elixir of Fortitude + [Health Potion]] x 3
Simple, Elixir is a very powerful start and you can easily bait a free kill with it. The fact that it gives free HP and 15 AD makes Riven an absolute bully in lane, allowing her to easily push an enemy out of lane and gain a nice little exp advantage, you're going to have to play passive at the start of the laning beforehand though if your on the blue side so it pushes closer to your tower, as you'll have to wait it out until you see when the enemy jungler ganks another lane so you can start making aggressive plays and possibly a kill in the process. You'll either be passive early on or aggressive early on depending on which side you are on.

I HIGHLY recommend using this only when you're on the purple side since almost every jungler will start blue and they will end up at red buff, leaving you a solid 2-3~ minutes of being a bully in lane, by the time the jungler does come you should of sent your enemy back to base or killed them by being a huge bully.

Note that this has become a lot riskier now since you can't run a ward, you can still run this but I don't really recommend it unless the enemy jungler and laner have no hard CC to lock you down, however if you feel you're confident enough in your Riven play you can go for it. Even still it's a pretty risky pick, but in truth it's become a bit stronger now since most top laners will start grabbing other items, giving you a slight advantage in health/ad early on.

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Rejuvenation Bead [Sight Ward]] x2 Health Potion x 4
Since they also took out the 9 potions start, you can go this build path instead, it provides basic laning sustain and it can upgrade into a Tiamat later on if your team comp fits to it, or you can just sell it if it doesn't, doesn't take too much out your pocket anyways and provides a great start with exceptional map awareness, ESPECIALLY if you're on the purple side you can make sure the enemy jungler doesn't sneak through your jungle and gank from Tri-Bush. I recommend this for almost every AP match-up or any enemy laner with a weak early game.

I don't really aim for Boots of Speed until after I've grabbed 2 Doran's Blade , her mobility is more than enough to do well in lane coupled with the fact her shield and the Doran's passive will make it easy to negate any harass thrown onto you. Hell, if you're ahead in lane you can just grab a Vampiric Scepter WITH your 2 Doran's Blade and Vampiric Scepter just sustain in your lane with no problems.

It's extremely easy to rack up The Black Cleavers armor reduction since Riven's kit synergizes well with it, this is great for a second full item mid game where small fights break out at dragon or in the jungle, an obvious pick since you'll be fighting along side your ADC about 25-30~ mins into the game, it is a team game after all.

Now, usually I grab Last Whisper since it's incredibly strong in the 35 minute marker where the enemy has quite a bit of armor stacked up, however it's a lot more efficient to go Warmog's Armor if their team is full of high burst champions like Talon/ LeBlanc/ Rengar/ Syndra. No point in being able to deal insane amounts of damage if you can't live past the first second of a fight. The armor pen isn't really needed against a team full of Assassins at around 30 mins of a game anyways, they'll still be building damage themselves.

I hardly grab Randuin's Omen anymore since the AD stacking meta got nerfed pretty hard, but if you do come across it, Randuin's will make it extremely easy to protect your ADC with it's insane active, as well as making you an off-tank in the process.

I grab Mercurial Scimitar over Maw of Malmortius when facing a team full of AP champions since the shield won't save you if you're focused anyways, Merc Scimitar gives you a get-out-of-jail card active on the go. It can also be used to turn around an Amumu ultimate and dive straight onto their unsuspecting ADC easily. The only time I would suggest Maw of Malmortius is if they lacked a significant amount of hard CC. In case the enemie Team has only AP Champs (except the AD carry) i recommend buying both.

Boots Choices

Usually I run Mercury's Treads due to the fact almost any team comp you're going to face will have 2 or more champions with hard CC, but sometimes there's that rare occasion when they have lots of AD stacked or they just lack CC in general.

If this is the case you can grab Ninja Tabi against an AD stacking team, or if they have balanced damage with absolutely no CC you can run Ionian Boots of Lucidity in lane. This makes you an absolute crazy duelist as Riven since your shield will be up every 4.26 seconds with Lucidity boots and Brutalizer, which only leaves a 1.76 second downtime on her shield. You can even grab the Elixier Of Brilliance later into the game and have a whopping 39 % CDR, you can take sustained amounts of damage for a long time in teamfights with this as well, making it a very strong pick against a team with low amounts of CC since it'll provide more sustain and DPS in the long run.

Tips Gainst Some Champs

IF playing against Bankplank (Only uses Q to out farm you and aims for late game tankiness):
Grab Q first, try your best to zone him out from any potential CS he can grab.
A bit hard to kill early on, you should be able to kill him post-6 though, his trading is lackluster compared to yours.
Don't keep fighting him if your abilities are cooldown and your health is around the same as his, he can easily chase you down with his passive's slow and harass you heavily before you can get away.
IF playing against Bruiserplank (Constantly harasses you with Q trying to win the lane by being a bully)
Grab E first, whenever GP's outline glows yellow, that means he is about to Q you, but try only activating your Q when you see the spell animation start. (Takes a lot of practice and improving on reflexes, but it's worth it)
Grab a second point in E at level 4, then just level Q normally.
Don't keep fighting him if your abilities are cooldown and his health is above 30%, he can easily chase you down with his passive's slow and possibly end up killing you, causing the lane to snowball in his favor.
Extremely easy to kill at level 6, his ultimate is designed for teamfights, not 1 on 1 duels.

Renekton
A good example on why you need to be aggressive as Riven, Renekton's level one isn't that great, but it's a whole different story for Riven. If you push the lane and grab the exp advantage, you can easily firstblood Renekton at level two if you managed to whittle him down to 60 % or less by then. The trick then is just to simply land your 2nd and 3rd Q on him, being sure to knock him away from where he's trying to run followed by an ignite and W, if he flashes away you can easily follow up with your flash if he's below 65 hp and land the killing blow on him with an auto attack. (3rd Q knockback pretty much negates ~30 % of his flash distance, allowing for an easy pick up with your flash)

However if you do not manage to kill him, no worries, he's got go back now and will probably stack armor, until then you just got to keep whittling him with harass, but you have to watch out for his enhanced stun. Once your Bloodthirster is finished the lane should become a lot easier and you should outscale him heavily into the mid/lategame.

Teemo
Skill Match-up, can range from extremely easy to extremely annoying/hard
Grab E first to negate as much harass from him as much as possible early on.
Hard to kill pre-6, killable post-6 if he's below 60% health, flash combo after his blind wears off.
Keep an eye on where he places mushrooms and remember where they are in lane.
Jump behind him if he places a shroom underneath your feet.
Avoid auto attacking as much as possible when blinded, just use your abilities in the mean time.

Wukong
This match-up is a bit more in Riven's favor, here's some basic knowledge on how to handle him.

Early aggressiveness is key, get as much harass as you can in since you out trade him pre-6.
If he jumps on you, immediately stun him and combo him. If he has his Decoy, try and follow him as best you can with your Q as well as predicting where he will run off to during the stealth.
Consider running Ninja Tabi over Merc treads.
Level 6 Wukong is a bit scary for Riven, the trick here is not to let him whittle you down below 50% because he can kill you easily afterwards.
Once Bloodthirster is built, you should be fine if you're equal in lane with him.

Grab Valor first, block all of his Decisive Strike's at level 1 with it, your minions will end up attacking him, causing the lane to push to your tower, alert your jungler so they can gank him.

If you're not experienced with this lane, max Valor first and focus on outcs'ing him instead, your lategame is stronger.

At level 2 when he tries to Decisive Strike onto you, just use a simple Valor + Broken Wings to get away from him, save the last 2 Broken Wings for after he uses his Q on a minion so you can CS with taking minimal damage from his Judgment, your goal is to go equal in CS with him or get your jungler to snowball you.

At around level 3 you can bait out Garen's Decisive Strike by using Ki Burst on him just as he's about to attack you, once he uses it on a minion you can jump on him, disengage with your 3rd Broken Wings's knockback afterwards so you aren't stuck in the full duration of his E, keep repeating this as frequently as possible to force him out of lane early on.

At level 6 he'll have bought an armor item or brutalizer, which afterwards he'll be hard to kill and will kill you easily unless your jungler has netted you at least 3 kills.

Once you get a Bloodthirster he's not as scary, all you really have to watch out for is his silence, if he lands it on you you're going to take moderate to immense amounts of damage from his Judgment, forcing you to play extremely passive until you can lifesteal it all back, if you manage to chunk him down quite a bit with constant abuse of your mobility/damage you can easily kill him, just watch out for any flash E+Ult combos from him.

Purple Sided Riven

In my opinion, Riven is one of the very champions that benefits off of playing on the dreaded purple side. This is due to the fact that she can get insane amounts of free damage by ambushing them at the top brush after they help leash their jungler at blue buff. If they don't come through the river to reach lane it doesn't really matter, they'll be behind in exp if they take the safe route anyways, still handing you the advantage. If the enemy jungler starts red though, you'll just have to lane normally, it's only a minor problem though.

Teamfights

Riven is fairly good at teamfights, she can either be an exceptionally strong front line or she can be an amazing peel for your allied ADC with her abilities, it just depends on what sort of team your facing or how fed you are.

Against an extremely tanky CC team.

Whenever you're fighting against a team with 2 or more champions with immense amounts of survivability and CC, Riven's role in a teamfight is to protect her ADC as much as possible, there's not much else she can do because she'll end up getting focused by the enemy AP carry and ADC, not a good spot for a squishy champion like Riven to be in.
Once the enemy frontline is either killed or is running away, only then can Riven start focusing on the squishier part of the enemy team to clean up.

Against a team filled with burst assassins.

Riven will be doing the same thing here as she does against a team filled with tanks and CC, it's you and your supports mission to stop them from slipping in between your team and blowing up your ADC before the fight has even started.
Once they are killed/forced away, you can start to clean up just like you do for the tanky team.

When they're tanky but lack a significant amount of CC.

This is where Riven can just flash in and initiate fights or just to wipe out the enemy ADC or AP carry within a few seconds, she's great at zoning them too, you don't have to really worry about your ADC since they don't have much CC, the support is more than enough peel for them. Once you kill or zone out their main source of damage that's pretty much it for the teamfight, the tanks can easily be cleaned up and you can work on taking a tower or objective afterwards.

When you're extremely ahead

By extremely, I'm talking about being 5/0/0 or more by 20 minutes while having the top CS in the game. In this point of the game you can catch anyone squishy and kill them off in a quick 2 seconds, you can also just flash ontop of the enemy team and use your immense amount of AoE to chunk them for a huge amount, your team can easily clean up afterwards even if you die in the process.

League of Legends is a team based, real time strategy game set in a mythical world of swords & magic where epic battles decide the fate of mystical nations. Game players take on the role of a Summoner who conjures and controls champions to fight for them at the Institute of War. During game play champions gain experience and items to enhance their skills and abilities. How players develop and play their champions can be the difference between a crushing defeat or a glorious victory!